Strength
by MmeMozart182
Summary: A small scene that came to me one day...my take on the afternoon that Sir Percy asked Marguerite to marry him. T for some Pimpernelrelated angsting that Percy does.


There was no conceivable way the first tumbril could have been saved. He knew this, had agonized over it for long hours, letting the candle dwindle and die while he traced routes in his mind and pleaded with the darkness. But there was a celebrity in that cart, a man who had been feted not long ago, and so it was heavily guarded. It came down to arithmetic, really; quiet, unrelenting, faceless numbers. So many guards, so many men in Paris, so many in the tumbril, so many miles to the gate. Formulae have very little interest in prayers -- no matter how he tried, how many different paths his tired brain traced, the answer was always the same. This was why he had always detested arithmetic.

It would be flippant, and flagrantly untrue, to say he had made his peace with this terribly unchangeable fact by the next afternoon, but he had forced it from his mind, pushed it away and focused all his energies on the task at hand. But he had not known..

He had not known they would separate families, at the last. It seemed too cruel, a final and gratuitous twist of the screw. He was sure…he had been sure..

He had been wrong, and Hastings, diffident, awkward, heartache expressing itself as bewildered courtesy, was now riding to a coast with a woman whose life was in shambles. Her brother and father, all she had in the world, had fallen to the blade in perhaps the very instant when a few damnably stupid Englishmen had saved her and her companions. She was barely twenty. She had screamed at him, begged, trembled -- she thought they had been saved at first, and then realized, and her face at that moment would not go from him. He sat in a shabby room, wreathed in dirt and stench, his head in his hands, and her face…he would have given his life twenty times over if only her face would leave his mind before he died.

When the afternoon began to fade, he rose from his knees, performed a hasty toilette, and left the room swiftly, leaving only the dust and shadows. As clean as brackish water and harsh lye soap could make him and dressed in typically impeccable fashion, he took a deep breath, and turned his feet purposefully toward the Comédie Francaise.

* * *

Marguerite frowned uncertainly at the dish on the table, and tasted it once more in the vain hope that the flavour would somehow have improved. Not that Armand would complain…Armand never complained, no matter what mess she left for his consumption. And Mme. Bernard insisted that a hungry man would eat most anything and be glad for it -- and with Monsieur's head buried in a book as it always was, his fork going empty to his mouth half the time, did Mademoiselle really think he tasted a bite? But still…Marguerite liked to try to make it well. It was something to do for Armand, dear Armand who did so much for her. And usually it was not…_so_ bad. But today she had been tired, a little distracted, and when the time came to salt the soup… 

She dipped her finger in his bowl and touched her tongue hesitantly to the mixture one last time, and grimaced. After a moment of reflection, she fetched a second bottle of wine from the cupboard and set it on the table. A rare luxury, but Armand was likely to be…rather thirsty, with tonight's meal.

As much of her brother's comfort as possible having been assured, then, Citoyenne Marguerite St. Just smoothed her dress, tied her cloak and proceeded at a pace more brisk that dignified down the stairs and into the street, conscious that she was very nearly late. She was only a few meters from the corner when, quite abruptly, a strong arm encircled her waist, a firm hand clapped across her mouth, and she tensed in rising panic against the powerful male form behind her in the instant before a quiet, lazy voice brushed against her cheek.

"You are not, mademoiselle, going to rehearsal."

With a slightly irritated laugh, Marguerite shook his palm from her mouth and, setting both hands firmly against his arm, extricated herself, turning to face him.

"Indeed I am, citoyen; I'm already late."

He shook his head gravely.

"Indeed you are not. M. Livret is taking his wife to supper for her birthday, and has given you all a holiday."

Marguerite raised an eyebrow.

"Citoyen Livret doesn't have the money to do that. He told me..us..so last week."

"Didn't," Percy responded, his face expressionless and his eyes sparkling.

Marguerite's mouth twitched, but she only lowered her eyes, smiling demurely through her eyelashes.

"Why..excellent. Then I can devote the evening to my mending, as I wished. Thank you for the news, Sir Percy.."

She made him a delicate curtsey, and he made a futile grab for her hands. Marguerite straightened rapidly and stepped backwards, setting his goal smartly behind her back. His hands followed, and she wove her fingers inextricably together; unabashed, he set his own fingers over them, his arms tracing hers, his body close to hers. Marguerite flushed, struggling to hide a grin and rebuking him in an urgent whisper, her eyes darting to curious passersby.

"Percy..people are staring…"

His lips brushed her forehead playfully, but there was an intense timbre underlying the laughter in his words.

"Then go for a walk with me, somewhere where we will not shock their sensibilities."

"It will be dark soon.."

By some spurious trick, he had twined his fingers thorugh hers, and now spread her arms wide as he stepped back.

"It will be a short walk."

* * *

The beginnings of twilight found them in the tiny garden behind her home, Armand having declined to join them. He stayed indoors with his book, though the fact that he chose to read in the kitchen, which overlooked the rear of the building, rather than in his own room made it clear to an amused Marguerite that she was well-chaperoned. They had talked for a long time; mostly her speaking, to be sure, but he listened intently, with a hunger out of proportion to the importance of her idle ramblings. He sat on the damp ground, careless of his breeches, while she took the single narrow stone bench, and his head rested on her knee. As the (literally) on-high fraternal guardian of her virtue did not object, Marguerite saw no reason to. Percy's lack of speech, the subtle unsettledness shadowing his every movement, rendered her inimitably English…acquaintance? courtier? friend..unprecedentedly vulnerable, and it was good to feel she could comfort him by so little a thing as pillowing his head with her dress and chattering backstage gossip.

He spoke after a few moments of mutual silence as if reading her mind, his eyes on the fading sky.

"You make everything better, don't you?"

Unconsciously, Marguerite had allowed her hand to drift to his bewitchingly smooth hair; she became aware of it now, but made no move to change its position.

"Hm?"

He reached over his shoulder, still with his back to her, and she set her other hand willingly enough in his.

"I was unhappy..very unhappy, when I came to you today. And now…you've made it all go away.." He paused a moment. "Not that, exactly. Perhaps it is only that you make me stronger. Better able to bear it."

His voice was very quiet, very earnest, almost unfamiliar. Marguerite laughed -- not unkindly, but not entirely kindly either. Her fingers -- small and delicate enough to be lacemaker's tools themselves, it seemed -- slipped from his grasp and toyed with the priceless frou-frou on his cravat. The bit of linen and its trimming, sold at the right store, would feed some families she knew for a week.

"What do you have to bear?"

With alarming ease, Blakeney reclaimed those wondering fingers, his voice still carefully neutral.

"Fear."

She laughed again, no bitterness this time.

"Six foot odd, good sir…fencing master, or so you say, and wealthy enough to buy your way out of or into anything you please! What do you fear?"

Percy twisted around to face her suddenly, tightening his fingers, and all the studied flippancy had vanished from his voice.

"I can't lose you."

Her fingertips danced the hair away from his temples, and she ignored the tightness in her chest.

"No, you've arranged that quite cleverly for the evening, milord, toying with my theatre.."

He rose to his knees; half-stooped as she was, they were nearly level.

"No. Margot. I mean forever."

Marguerited tried, and failed, to emancipate her hands, as her voice wavered unsuccessfully in search of the proper tone.

"Whatever do you.."

"Marry me."

The words surprised him as much as her; they stood frozen a moment, eyes locked while their future hung in the air between them; then Percy drew a depe breath and spoke in a steady voice, without the hint of a smile, while his hand trembled in hers.

"I love you."

"Percy.."

"I do," he raised himself further, speaking with growing intensity. "Marguerite, I love you, and I will, for the rest of my life, whether you want me to or not. I will hold to that love, and to you, as long as I live."

Marguerite St. Just, the beautiful, the sparkling actress, had in truth her share of proposals. But this scene was new to her, and she felt a perverse desire to abandon the part she had so diligently studied for so long. Percy's breath held no tint of alcohol, and he was on his knees because it was convenient, not because it was dramatic. He said nothing of her charms and precious litle of what he could offer her; only that he loved her. And if twenty five years as a beauty in an ugly world had taught her anything of men, he was telling the truth.

With a bewildered sense of inevitability, of frightened giddiness, she tried to draw her hands (when had he captured the other one?) but Percy only tightened his hold. His voice, too, was shaking now, but a little of his terrifying intensity had faltered, and he almost smiled.

"I mean it. I will love you. I will make you happy.."

Her laugh was grating, empty, as with a renewed effort she freed herself.

"I'm quite happy now. Fine job, a darling brother, a few rooms and a gard--"

"Marguerite."

She would never have thought so familiar, so commonplace a word as her own name could have so disarmed her. Suddenly very young, suddenly very scared, she allowed him to hold her hands again.

"Percy," she murmured, softly, helplessly. She could feel his hands, cold as ice, trembling in hers, and she knew when he spoke that his life hung on her words.

"Do you love me?"

He worshipped her, as no one ever would; and he was a man of honor and loyalty, who would know that love is will and action, not merely shifting feelings. He laughed at her wit and grew grave at her tears; he liked her brother and loved her God. This was a man who was tender, honest, faithful, and good to be with. She could vow to honor this man; to bear children to this man; to live life gladly beside this man. Some day, perhaps, even grow to love him…or perhaps this was love now…

Marguerite placed her hand against his flushed cheek, and he turned his lips to her palm. Her words emerged breathlessly.

"If not you, no one."

He folded her hand back into his, and held her eyes with his.

"The chance…even just the chance…of you is worth more, to me, than the adoration of any other woman alive."

She laughed, a little shakily, to dispell this awful breathlessness.

"Are you adored by every other woman alive?"

"Not yet," was the complacent reply, and she giggled with a strange release as he rose to his feet, pulling her as well, and cupped his hands around her face. "Nor do I wish to be."

His eyes went to the depths of her soul, and saw all she was and could be, and promised to love it. One could disappear into those eyes, those arms. His smile was very gentle, very hopeful, very young.

"Margot. Will you be my wife?"

Her hands crept up to his shoulders, and a sudden rush of joy astonished her. She _would_ love him. Perhaps she did already. But yes, oh yes, she would be. She..

Two very small words, insignificant little things, really, to change his life, her life, two lives. And then he held her in his arms, and her lips were pressed to his, and Armand St. Just, who had _not _been reading for at least an hour, saw all there was to see by the risen moon before, with a powerful effort, he discreetly closed the curtains.


End file.
